Mildred Martindale: Fluoridated water provides many benefits

In answer to the letter from Janet Nagel in Nov. 12 Camera. I would like to speak in favor of water fluoridation. I was born in Boulder and always drank our fluoride free "glacier" water.

When I was in grade school in Boulder people came in every year, to check our teeth for new cavities and write down how many fillings we each had. My count kept growing every year even though I brushed daily, and went to the dentist three, not two, times a year. I wish I could make Ms. Nagel feel all the pain I felt as a little girl when the dentist drilled in my teeth. (my father didn't believe in novocaine so I felt everything) Eventually my total number of fillings decreased when several old fillings would be replaced by a single new one.

Meanwhile, they also checked the teeth of the children in Colorado Springs which had natural fluoride in the water. Their teeth seemed much stronger than ours, and they had so many fewer cavities and fillings than we did, it was obvious that fluoride was a great benefit to them.

I was and still am convinced of fluoride benefit to babies and children. When I lived in areas without fluoridated water I gave my children prescription fluoride and all have very good strong white teeth.

It has also been shown that the bones of senior citizens are stronger with fluoridated water. I'm 77 and do not have osteoporosis.

I have seen through my own experience that water fluoridation is an easy, safe effective way to produce life long benefits I'm very sad for communities who don't use it, and most especially for their children.

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story